Two City Council members dedicated thousands of dollars from their office budgets to local park improvements under newly approved policies regulating their spending.

The details: Council members Paige Ellis and Krista Laine, who respectively represent Southwest and Northwest Austin, transferred funding for an off-leash dog area at Circle C Metropolitan Park and improvements at Springwoods Neighborhood Park. Their donations totaled more than $100,000, mainly for the Circle C project, and build on long-term plans for both city parks.

Council office budget transfers to Austin Parks and Recreation are permitted under revised expensing guidelines adopted in January. Those policies allow council member to move funds to city departments, as long as officials publicly pass a resolution clearly documenting the scope of any transfer.

Austin's planned consolidation of city technology staff is facing pushback from some employees concerned about the shift's cost, and possible risks like reduced service response times and lost expertise.

The details: The citywide technology services reorganization was announced by City Manager T.C. Broadnax to align Austin with systems in comparable cities. The project started last May and will include centralizing IT employees across all city departments under Austin Technology Services, or ATS.

As that work continues, members of the city and county employees' union AFSCME Local 1624 are asking Austin to halt the initiative and find other ways to roll out structural improvements. Labor representatives questioned the program's eventual outcomes, and claim several Austin department heads had previously outlined significant risks to city operations, service reliability and security if specialized technology workers are removed from their current teams.

Check out six upcoming, ongoing or completed transportation projects across the Austin metro.

Upcoming projects

Old Fitzhugh Road
Project: The city of Dripping Springs is aiming to beautify Old Fitzhugh Road while improving traffic flow, pedestrian access and connectivity. 
Update: Per city officials, Old Fitzhugh Road will be restricted to one-way operations throughout construction. Driveway closures and reconstruction of private driveways will be coordinated with property owners before construction.

• Timeline: spring 2026-spring 2028
• Cost: $4.7 million
• Funding source: city of Dripping Springs, Hays County Parks and Open Space Grant, TxDOT

Texas held its primary elections on March 3, with Republican and Democratic voters selecting their parties’ nominees for scores of federal, state and local seats. Yet for some candidates, a major hurdle still remains before the November election.

The overview: Dozens of primary races are headed to May runoffs after no candidate picked up more than half of the vote, triggering an overtime round between the two highest-performing candidates.

The details:  Texas’ runoff election is set for May 26, the day after Memorial Day. Early voting runs from May 18-22, per the secretary of state.

State law requires primary candidates to receive more than 50% of the vote to advance to a general election, meaning a candidate must earn a majority of the vote—not just the highest number of votes—to win their primary outright. This rule means crowded races in Texas primaries and special elections frequently result in runoffs.

In those races, the top two vote-getters advance to a runoff.

Keep reading to learn about voting in the runoffs and who's on the ballot.